Mission 4 - SPACE BATTLE THREAD

[Bippwatt]

"Well, that went over better than expected.", Sabrina said calmly.

"Ma'am, permission to speak candidly?"

"Granted."

"Ma'am, if you ever make Captain now, I will be shocked."

"Very true."

They had been running dark for over five minutes now, and any moment, they would commit to a slingshot around the next planet, to slide quietly into orbit.

"Still running dark, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Keep emissions in check."

"Ma'am, we're closing on the slingshot point."

"Right. Prepare the pre-planned thruster firing plan."

"Aye. Thruster plan locked. Ready when you are."

"Fire."

The emergency thrusters popped the Raven neatly onto the perfect slingshot trajectory.

"We are in slingshot orbit. We should hit the other side in about... four minutes."

"Good. MAC status?"

"One hundred percent, ma'am."

"Alright...launch Shiva one on remote detonate only on course....Zero zero inclination, one zero starboard. Put it's engines on a figure eight escape trajectory."

She plotted out the course she wanted. "Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am. Firing Shiva."

The first missile tube thumped as it's payload was launched.

"Shiva away."

"Good. Now we hurry up and wait."

[Deleted]

^{Corporal Lopez
Venom-class Destroyer,
UNSCS Into the Breach}

The Corporal ducked behind the corner, the edges sizzled with a few plasma bolts. The destroyer ''Into the Breach" was boarded.

"Counter boarders, get to the bridge!" The P.A System shivered to live. The alien bastards where getting close to the command crew, and the bridge in general. If they got control of the Destroyer, the could in turn, use it against UNSC targets. A normal MAC round had enough power to destroy a cruiser depending on were it hit.

"Get moving, flank if you ha-" The Sergeant started screaming, then got shot in with a needler. The needles exploded, and so did the Sergeant. The wall was covered with his internals, and it made the Corporal nearly gag.

The fire team pushed out towards the intersection and took cover behind a fallen vending machine. The Corporal popped up and fired, the nearest group of grunts got 32 rounds of 7.62 armor piercing rounds.

A marine next to him stood, and over the machine a blue sword nearly decapitated him. The marine fell to the deck dead, and a Private shot the hand that carried the sword. It's shields shimmered. The Corporal moved a tad bit to the right and fired into the chest of the elite. The private finished it off with another round to from his shotgun.

Out of twenty men, only three were alive, and the bad thing was they WERE the defenders for the bridge. They tried to flank when another boarding craft attached itself and over whelmed the defenders.

However, from the rear of the ship more Marines were coming, but for now, it was up to the Corporal and the two privates.

"Lets go!" He screamed, and moved back towards the corner he had just watched his Sergeant explode. They would flank with the flanking route they had used.

The Corporal came to the intersection and stopped, peaked his head around. The bridge was just ahead, one more right and they were there.

A few screams were heard from the bridge, then the P.A system cracked to life.

"They are on the bri-" The voice said, before a groan and the squeaks of Covenant grunts. The Corporal wondered what was left of the Covenant boarding part. The first pod was mostly elites and two hunters, but the second pods consisted of a lot more grunts and jackals, maybe a few elites.

The Corporal rounded the corner, pulled the trigger and watched as the 7.62 MM rounds nearly tore the head of the grunt coming his direction. Another one rounded the corner to investigate the human gunfire, before receiving a belly full of lead. The Corporal heard his gun's metallic click, it was empty. He switched to his M6D handgun.

He motioned for the Private to take the lead, after all he did have a shotgun.

Once they reached the bridge, all three marines panned right. The bridge was full of grunts, not a single elite was seen. The Corporal aimed and fired his handgun, well the two Privates did their job.

Grunt after grunt fell before they could even react. Five grunts were dead from two shotguns and a handgun before they even turned to fire, but the returning fire was deadly. The leading private with the shotgun got hit in the side, then the thigh and finally the side of the face. His body fell lump onto the deck.

The Corporal fired his handgun some more before ducking behind a low raise edge, and reloaded quickly. The remaining private fired his weapon across the bridge, nailing a Covenant target, however he damaged the station labeled "COMM2".

A group of grunts entered the bridge and raised their guns onto the two marines, but the private was quicker. He fired his shotgun into the lead, taking down two targets and injuring the third. The fourth grunt fled the room, before being cut down by human gun fire.

The Corporal sighed in relief as four marines entered the bridge and took down the last grunt from the group, then concentrated on the ten across the bridge.

The Corporal asked. "Is the ship secure?" To the lead Marine, a Sergeant.
"No, not yet. A few corridors are still flooded with the damn things and they landed another boarding craft near the rear life pods." The NCO said.

It took a good ten minute effort to maneuver into position to take the shot so they wouldn't damage the bridges consoles, but they got them at the cost of a marines life.

The entire bridge crew was eliminated, and now their was a destroyer floating in space with no commander.

[kuran]

Rear Admiral Daniel Yakamura
UNSCS Winchester
Bridge

"Admiral, I insist go get medical attention. We are a small vessel, or medical bays shouldn't be to hard to find. I'm sorry about your Cruiser, Admiral."

Daniel nodded. "You are right Commander, I will do that. And thank you...she was a fine ship."

After nearly smacking an orderly who tried to take the case carrying Dawn, he reluctantly sat on the edge of a bed in the medical room and let a medic stitch the cut above his eye.

-----------
UNSCS Into the Breach,Bridge

The bridge was, to put it simply, a mess. While most of the systems were intact, there was blood everywhere, both human and alien. The bodies had been cleared out, but the stench of death remained.

Plugging the laptop containing Dawn into the holotank, the AI flickered into existence. It looked confused for a moment before nodding a few times. "Running systems checks for full readiness Sir." Came her cool voice.

Daniel nodded and took the captain's chair, feeling distinctly uncomfortable at taking the seat of a dead man.

"Very well." He keyed into the frequency of the ODST team that had until a moment ago been guarding him, but had since stalked off through the ship with the promise of killing the last of the Covenant onboard.

"Lance Corporal, status?"


Lance Corporal James Beaufort
Fireteam Raptor, Spec ops ODST
UNSCS Into The Breach, mess hall.

As it turned out, the steel tables that most ships had in their mess halls were quite effective cover when turned on their side.

James had learned this several minutes before. They had quickly swept the ship and pushed back all of the Covenant resistance into this room, but the survivors were putting up a hell of a fight. They had been deadlocked for several minutes. A handful of grunts and an elite minor were all that was left, but they seemed determined to do as much damage as possible before being killed.

His comms crackled. "Lance Corporal, status?" came the voice of the admiral. Pressing his hand to the side of his head, James struggled to hear what was being said over the sound of fire.

"Admiral, we've almost cleaned out the covenant from the ship, we've got them cornered."

Peering over the lip of the table he was using for cover, he ducked back down as a grunt fired it's plasma pistol at him. He cursed. They weren't supposed to use grenades...but it was a risk they'd have to take. This deep into the ship it wasn't likley to cause a hull breach anyway.

Unclipping a standard frag grenade from his belt, he pulled the pin and held it for a three count before hurling it into the corner that the Covenant were in.

As soon as he heard the bang of the grenade going off, he vaulted the table and rushed forwards.

Two of the grunts were dead. the third recived a shotgun blast from Lenov and the Elite, who was stunned, recived two full clips of MA5 ammo from James and Mcalister. And then, just like that, there was silence.

It had been a long day.

[Deleted]

Vice Admiral Klix
UNSCS Arizona
In orbit

"Sir, we are getting multiple requests at once!" The Comms officer said, trying to reply. The fact is, for the first time in the mission, both Comm stations were busy and over flowing.
"Sir, I've got the Covenant ships that just warped in!" The Ops officer said.
"Sir, Frigate Victoria is reques... Sir, the Corvett... Sir, ships are asking to fi.. SIR!!!" The Comm's officer screamed, clearly overloaded with requests.

"OPEN A DAMN UNSC WIDE COMM LINE!" The Admiral screamed The Comm's officer silently followed the orders.
"This is Vice Admiral Klix. UNSC Ships are to fire towards the Covenant Vessels that have just warped in so happily. Be aware, we have enough power to SPLIT the planet. UNSC Ship commanders, DO NOT MISS YOUR TARGETS! UNSC Ground Forces, pull away from the forerunner building, however this is not necessary. Fleet commanders, firing solution have been given from my shipboard A.I's your yours." The Admiral said, before manually muting the channel.

The UNSC ships pivoted as a unit, all aiming towards the new Covenant threats.
"Sir, SMAC at 100%!" The Weapons officer yelled.
"Cut it to 75%." The Admiral said, and the weapons officer replied.

No later then seven seconds, a few ships in the UNSC fleet unleashed it's MAC's towards the five new Covenant targets. The target projection had most MAC's, if they did miss, landing on the other side of the planet thanks to gravity and the speed of their travels.

The Arizona shook as the SMAC fired, followed by four Marathon Cruisers, three Destroyers and three Frigates, and soon to be more.
"All UNSC ships, hold fire!" The Admiral said as he un-muted the channel. One SMAC round, and seventeen normal MAC rounds were on target towards the new Covenant Battlegroup.

"Sir, MAC trajectories have all confirmed, they will hit the Covenant ships." Dino informed the Admiral. "Yeah, last time you said that, we missed." The Admiral scoffed back.

[Cabel]

[14th Tactical Response Fleet: Orbital bombardment: UNSCS Passchendaele: Bridge]

“Five Covenant contacts have exited slip space in orbit over the Excavation Site,” Nadezhda reported, her own scanners having worked quicker than the Passchendaele’s being distorted by the planet’s gravity well.

“What? Five Covenant ships? Where’d they come from?” Commander Alice Qelar asked, surprised that no ships in the UNSC Fleet within the system had detected those ships before they had materialized.

“It seems, Commander, those ships had been laying in wait,” Nadezhda said.

“What is the status of the drop?” Matvey asked, not wanting to initiate in maneuvers when they still had dropships aboard.

“The drop is ninety-percent complete,” the Lieutenant at the Operation’s station report, monitoring the combat drop.

“Alert me when the drop is complete, and target those vessels with the MLA turrets ventral and fore. Prepare to set engines to full thrust, and angle our ascent to bearing two-six-zero by zero-eight-zero. Bring us around when we’ve cleared the higher orbit, at a full one-eighty. Make sure we’re clear of the line of sight of the other Fleet ships,” Matvey ordered. “Commander Qelar, as this will be a precision strike coordinate with Nadezhda,” The Passchendaele’s dropships filed out of her dropship bays, and the cruiser pushed out of the parking orbit before passing the higher orbit. The Marathon Class cruiser came about on a full one-eighty, with its twin main cannons aimed at the planet.

“UNSCS Beaver,” Matvey said, opening a com-channel over a secure network to the corvette below the Covenant group. The tactical scanners had detected and identified the corvette, along with the two frigates while the Passchendaele’s combat drop had been in progress. “UNSCS Passchendaele, to UNSCS Beaver…Galina here, set your engines to maximum thrust and get out of there. Get to safety,”

As per Admiral Klix’ orders to target the Covenant vessels within the atmosphere over the Excavation site with a full barrage of the main cannons, Matvey gave the order and both cannons of the Passchendaele fired into the atmosphere targeting the nearest of the larger vessels. The order to cease fire erupted over the bridge’s audio speakers, and as if a single entity the main cannons of the FLEET ships fell into silence even while the Passchendaele's cannons recharged.

[Bippwatt]

"Well, hell. The Covenant just don't like to let sleeping dogs lie, do they?" Sabrina looked at her plot. And laughed. Laughed with a line of raw revenge lighting up in it.

"Orson. Priority One channel, all UNSC units."

"Aye, ma'am. It's up."

"All UNSC ships, secure for EMP and shockwave. Shiva inbound on vector One-zero-zero port, five-five up. Repeat, secure for EMP and shockwave."

"Transmission out. Urm...how are you going to get that Shiva from where it is to there, ma'am?"

"Watch me." She tapped the thruster commands and the Shiva rocketed outward, bursting from it's original flight plan.

Instead of curving around and slaming into the destroyer from the side, it burst from inbetween the moon and the planet and rocketed right past the UNSC forces.

Just as the MAC rounds hit, the Shiva, in all of it's plasma-front briliance, detonated and washed over the now wounded and unshielded Covenant ships...

"Take that, bastards.", Sabrina said feelingly.

(Hope no one minds that. I can edit it tomorrow if not.)

[Cabel]

[14th Tactical Response Fleet: Orbital bombardment: UNSCS Passchendaele: Bridge]


“Transmission coming in. It’s an all-point’s broadcast on the Fleet Network,” Lieutenant Louise Denrae reported, from her station.

“On audio,” Matvey said, and heard the warning from Quoth the Raven. “Nadezhda, reinforce your core and program against EMP pulses up beginning at the hundred megaton range. You know the routine. Before you power down and fall back to your core, redirect those systems your subroutines controlled to the various assigned stations. I don’t want to lose you, Nadezhda,” Matvey explained, turning to the nearest holopedestal. “Wait for my signal to re-initiate your systems,”

“This is becoming a habit,” the A.I. said, in Russian. Lines of code scrolled across Nadezhda‘s otherwise caring appearance, as her various subroutines redirected the multitude of services to pre-designated stations on the bridge and through redundant stations located throughout the ship. The A.I.’s avatar dematerialized as the holopedestal powered down, along with many across the ship and armored flaps locked in place over the holopedestals. Nadezhda’s core program, along with its “branches” retreated back to the core, an armored and shielded core buried in a faraday cage deep within a heavily armored compartment of the ship to wait out the potential EMP from the SHIVA payload of a Barracuda Class Frigate.

“Crew, secure your stations and Operations, initiate EMP protection on the critical systems now,” Matvey ordered, opening a ship-wide transmission. The space veteran hoped the protection programs and shielding would pay off, or the efforts of the UNSC leading up to this point would be very little if they had to wait for tugs to tow them back.

[z]

Eden Lawrence

"Sir!" She said, saluting as each of the members of REVIVE stood in a straight line, at ease and ready to take on whatever mission they had. "Team REVIVE reporting sir!" Eden said, not waiting for Matt to do so.

She was going to be the leader of the team before he came alone, and she liked to think she still mattered, thus she did this quite often.

[Deleted]

Vice Admiral Klix
UNSCS Arizona
In Orbit

"Is our ship EMP protected right now?" The Admiral asked.
"Yes sir, all but Reactor four." The Engineer replied.
"What is reactor four status?" The Admiral asked.
The Engineer slowly typed in a command, he was tired.
"Sir, reactor four has been repaired, but only slightly. Maximum operating percent is outputted at seven percent, normal output would be a mere two percent." The Engineer replied.
"Shut it down for further repairs." The Admiral said.
"Reactor four offline." The Engineer replied.
The Admiral sat up, and spoke to the bridge crew. "Ladies and Gentlemen, you can leave your consoles to stretch you legs. We are not in any imminent danger with the Covenant Fleet, so everything should be fine."

The Comms officer looked over, got up and pushed in and locked her chair into place, and the consoles screens slowly dimmed.

She nodded, a 'Thank you' of her own.

The Admiral pondered at the reports. The UNSC had lost a Frigate and a Corvette on the surface. The Covenant ships that had exited slip space had one remaining ship, but the scanners were being interrupted by the sand storm approaching the battlefield.

The Admiral would keep an eye out.

"Admiral, I've noticed three Corvettes changing course towards the battlegroup." The A.I pipped up.

The Admiral knew that half of the ships had just used their primary weapon on targets, however there should be a few vessels with MAC capabilities.

"Alright, Dino. Scan the ships and look for active energy building where their MAC guns would be." The Admiral ordered.
"Admiral, not to many ships have full charge. I've noticed one Frigate and two Destroyers with full charge, one of which is recently reassigned Admiral Yakamura" The A.I responded.

The Admiral signed. Five MAC's towards three targets, with luck, they would break with one.

"Give the order for the two Destroyers to fire at the Corvettes, both MAC rounds." The Admiral said.
"Also, tell a Frigate in our group to use all reactor to charge their MAC gun, and join the Frigate targeting the last Corvette in firing." The Admiral added.

"Orders sent, Admiral." The A.I responded.

Soon, the Covenant Corvettes would hopefully be destroyed.

(( OOC: I can again delete this, but I need to make Space a bit more... engaged.)

[Cabel]

[14th Tactical Response Fleet: In Orbit: UNSCS Passchendaele: Bridge]

“Sir!” Eden Lawrence said, saluting as each of the members of REVIVE stood in a straight line, at ease and ready to take on whatever mission they had. “Team REVIVE reporting sir!” Eden said, not waiting for Matt to do so.

“At ease, Team REVIVE,” Matvey said, turning to face the assembled group of five commandoes in their gear. “I do hope you found the accommodations to your liking. That was the end of the pleasantries, I’m afraid. The situation on the ground has devolved considerably, as our troops had prepared for a long drawn-out siege, but the Covenant were able to establish a foothold around the Excavation site our primary objective. There are reports of a Covenant presence within the structure at the center of the Excavation efforts. If that weren’t enough, the debris from the incapacitated and destroyed Covenant vessels that had deployed within the atmosphere along with two of our downed ships…a frigate and a corvette, a sandstorm had formed around the areas of the worst fighting. From those same reports, we have a team of Spartan II’s on the ground alongside ODST’s, Marines and heavy armor. There’s nearly a battalion of Grizzly and Scorpions ground-side, if not more and only recently has the order been given for all ground forces to converge on the structure. I will leave it to you on how to deploy, but we must dislodge that Covenant force from the structure. The Passchendaele’s marine contingent, and the heavy armor have been deployed to the surface. The ODST’s have been given orders to remain here, for the possibility of countering boarders and for reinforcing the position ground-side if the call comes,”

“Sir, long range scanners have detected three Covenant Corvettes, SDV variants, on an intercept course for the Fleet,” Lieutenant Louise Denrae reported, as the Passchendaele’s A.I. had yet to return thought that hadn’t surprised Matvey. The threat of an EMP and shockwaves had been real every time a SHIVA had been launched, and the Passchendaele’s core had been reinforced to absorb or at least shrug it off.

“What is the status on both main cannons?” Matvey asked.

“Magnetic capacitors are charging, with forty-percent charge on the Main Cannon and fifty percent charge on the Secondary Cannon,” Commander Alice Qelar reported from the primary weapon’s station.

“Are the ARCHER pods primed?” Matvey asked.

“Aye, Sir. All ARCHER Pods are primed and ready,” Alice reported.

“Good. Arm all MLA Turrets, and prepare to fire the ARCHER Pods on my signal,” the Passchendaele’s Captain ordered. “Helm, set port-bow thrusters for a seven second burn and set engines to full ahead. Bring us to starboard, away from the planet at zero-four-four by two-two-four. The moment we’ve cleared the planet’s gravity well, set dorsal-bow thrusters for a four second burn. Drop us down below the Fleet ships, and bring us to bearing zero-zero-four relative position. Set the ventral-bow and dorsal-aft thrusters to a three second burn. Aim our bow directly at the SDV Corvette formation, and make sure they can‘t see us until it‘s too late. I want to be able to have ARCHER salvos with MLA fire and a salvo from each main cannon if possible,”

“Aye, Sir,” came the replies from the bridge crew in unison, as Matvey turned back to the assembled Team REVIVE.

“I’ll leave it to you to take an HEV pod, or the Pelicans of which a few are still on deck with their engines running. I'm assigning the Heavy Warthog Alpha to your team for this mission along with a vehicle of your choice,” Matvey said.

[Wax™]

Captain Jonathon 'Ricket' Michaels
Task Force 77: UNSCS Ares
Bridge of the UNSCS Ares

"Captain! We are being contacted by one of the SPARTANS!?"

"Patch him through!"

"This is GOLD Two to the UNSC Ares, we have secured the asset and require immediate evac, we also have a badly wounded trooper, please send evacuation pelicans ASAP."

Jonathon frowned as he listened to the message direction from GOLD Two, Jonathon leaned forward in his chair and punched in a few buttons to establish a two way frequency between himself and GOLD two.

"GOLD Two, this is Captain Michaels, affirmative on your last I will send an EVAC Bird modified for the mission and four sparrowhawk birds to protect it... It will be down in ten."

Once Jonathon finished that message he turned to the operations officer who was looking at Jonathon with a blank expression.

"Send that bird down with escorts now! I wan't them up in half that time"

[Deleted]

Vice Admiral Klix

The Arizona barely managed to dock with the repair station. In fact, they weren't docked, just merely floating beside it as the crew started to repair the damaged sections of the ship, focusing on replacing hull breaches and the damaged reactors.

For every second they were away from the fleet, the less power it had. Their man gun had proven most effective, how ever it was down to eight rounds in the magazine left, and the bad part was the refit stations didn't have extra's.

Luckily, the Kilimanjaro was still with the fleet. The Arizona's proved most effective against the Covenant fleet, the only bad thing was their was only two.

The Admiral viewed his TAC-PAD. The second and third reactor were repaired fairly decently. The engineering team had dubbed them to be ninety four percent operational.

The forth reactor would be disabled for almost sixty hours, a long repair.

"How much longer is our repair?" The Admiral asked.
"They are patching our hull breaches now. We are still looking at twenty four or more hours." The Engineer replied.
"Not fast enough. We've got the necessary reactor power to charge our gun faster then six percent at max charge, and I doubt we'll take a hit to the same spot twice. Dis-Eng.. Tell the repair teams to get back to the refit station, will continue repairs when we are back at Reach or Earth." The Admiral said.

The Engineer looked worried, but then started to understand. If his calculations were correct, the gun would charge at Seven point Eight percent every ten seconds now, and the hull breaches from the laser were pinpoint, it would be hard to hit them the same spot again.

The Arizona got the green to go in a mere minute, it didn't take long for the station to reclaim the Titanium A Plates because they were only one out at that moment.

The Arizona edged forward, then past the station. The repair team took a pelican over, so it would be a easy trip back through the void to the repair station.

The Arizona would be with the fleet again soon.